The shortest, most cheesy answer is “however long it takes to tell the story.” Unfortunately, if it takes you hundreds of thousands of words to tell the story, getting it published it will be practically impossible.

According to Chuck Sambuchino, the most publisher-friendly length for an adult novel manuscript is between 80,000-100,000 words. Science fiction and fantasy authors usually need a bit more space for worldbuilding, so he says the ideal range for them is between 100,000-115,000 words. However, Chuck is sort of working for the Devil, so I’d feel bad if he were my only source for this post.

Colleen Lindsay, a literary agent at FinePrint, has similar guidelines: around 100K for epic fantasy or sci-fi, 80-90K for thrillers and 80-100K for crime fiction. Also, she’s not in league with Lucifer.

Both Chuck and Colleen emphasize that there are exceptions, like first-time novelists publishing 200,000 word behemoths. But such exceptions are extremely rare. If you try going well above or below the usual range, your writing needs to be extraordinary. I would not recommend doing so unless you are absolutely sure that your story cannot work at a more conventional range.

33 Responses to “How Long Should Your Novel Manuscript Be Before You Submit It?”

However, do you have any tips for not letting it slow the story down too much? Granted, it does feature cultural practices derived from those of modern-day Earth, and the characters are aware of it, but I do not want to freeze the story with a wall of text about things not relevant to the action.

—Please focus on showing us the society in action rather than sifting through backstory. The backstory is usually less important and almost always less interesting. For example, are people afraid of the police? Showing that is probably a much better introduction to your society than opening with a history lesson about how Generalissimo Smith came to power.

—As much as possible, put your world-building into action and dialogue rather than narratorial exposition. That usually sets a more active pace and makes it easier to tie the world-building into what is actually happening.

—Be really careful about “as you know, Bob” dialogue. For example, let’s say you’ve got two characters in an alternate universe that veered off from ours when McCain got elected President. It’d sound pretty tacky to have one character say something like “As you know, McCain got elected last year” because it doesn’t sound natural for people to talk about information they already know like that. The dialogue would feel much more believable if it built on the characters’ shared knowledge. Something like “I haven’t felt this [ADJECTIVE] since McCain got elected!”

—One setup that’s often effective is introducing an outsider to the society or using a protagonist that’s an outsider. For example, Harry Potter is raised by nonwizards, so he’s an outsider that has to be gradually introduced to magical stuff. This will probably make that character more relatable (because we know as little about the world as he does) and we’ll learn more as the world is introduced to him.

—Introduce details about the world, particularly the backstory, gradually. Otherwise, readers might get overwhelmed. Also, please be careful about imaginary words (words that won’t immediately make sense to the readers, like Narnia or Muggle or Hogwarts or whatever).

How do I indicate this elegantly? Dropping foreign words into speech written in English makes no sense from the standpoint of the Translation Convention (see this published author’s website and scroll down to “Language”.) Visual mediums have an easy solution: show lots of writing and signage in the foreign language. Prose doesn’t have this.

They’re really speaking Russian, but use American idioms? Hmm. What’s the target audience? I think adult readers would wonder why these Russians use distinctly American phrases. It might them to suspend their disbelief.

One alternative would be checking out a book with Russian slang/idioms. If you translated those idioms literally into English and gave us context clues, I think that the dialogue would sound more authentic but still be easy to understand.

For example, an American might call somebody running a company a “fat cat,” but the closest Spanish phrase would be “pez gordo,” which literally means fat fish. So if you were writing a Spanish character, he might refer to somebody as a fat fish.

Thanks for your input. I may have to use actual Russian turns-of-phrase just to indicate that the characters don’t speak English — and from the standpoint of the backstory, it would actually make more sense.

However, no one — not even lower-class types — will speak mat in my story.

My understanding, mostly coming from reading terrible novels is that you mark the first instance with an asterisk and then indicate at the bottom of the page that it is translated from Russian and just continue like that. An example off the top of my head, of that, and of a terrible novel would be Battlefield Earth, the majority of the time, the lead antagonist is speaking only in Psychlo (I think that’s what the language was) so L. Ron Clam-God indicated when he spoke a phrase or sentence in English, instead of reminding the reader each sentence that he was speaking Psychlo.

Lighting Man, your suggestion can work too. I’ll keep both your idea and B. Mac’s in mind when actually writing the thing. I’m still outlining all of the chapters; though I have actually written a few chapters, they need heavy revision to plug up some enormous plot holes.

If the characters in the novel sometimes use Russian and sometimes use English, you could probably throw in brief pointers like “XYZ,” John said in Russian. It’s not the most artful writing, but it easily conveys information that is probably important.

However, if all of the dialogue in the book is in Russian, I wouldn’t recommend that.

Funny you should mention that; the characters do use English as a naming language for minor towns and the like (the way Latin is used today) though in the story, English naming is falling into disuse. However, all of the dialogue is in Russian, so “[character] said in Russian” isn’t a viable choice.

I’m sure I’ll figure out how to communicate all of this elegantly. It’ll take many revisions, but I will figure it out.

You could have the narrator make an observation about the Russian language early on. That would probably cue readers that the characters aren’t speaking English, or would at least give you opportunities to suggest it.

I don’t know enough about Russian to offer any such observations, but hopefully your research uncovered something. For example, if Gary were narrating a Superhero Nation novel, I might have him say something like “Agent Orange learned English from a thesaurus and espionage from James Bond marathons.” I think that’d help prepare readers for why that character has such a bizarre voice.

I’ll just use an “Explanatory” like the one in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (even though that book’s Explanatory wasn’t about language.) It only needs to be a few sentences long, so it will be unobtrusive.

How would you determine the word count to see what range you fall in? Is that just a word processor number or that 250 Rule people talk about? I hear a lot about the 80,000 mark, but I never know what method of word count they are referring to. And if it’s the 250 Rule, does that imply courier 12 with 25 lines per page? Thanks!

Have your word processor count up the words for you and round to the nearest 500 words. If your word processor does not have a word-count feature, please use the Word Count Tool online.

Please do not use the “250 Rule.”* It’s a very, very sketchy estimate that was a lot more useful before the age of fast-and-accurate computerized word-counts.

…

*For the reference of other people: the “250 Rule” is a crude way to estimate the number of words in a manuscript by multiplying the number of pages by 250. Unfortunately, depending on your typesetting and page breaks, this estimate may be WILDLY inaccurate. For example, on my default settings, I usually get around 325-350 words per page in Microsoft Word with Times New Roman and 275 with Courier. If I had 400 pages in Courier, the rule of 250 would estimate that my manuscript is 100,000 words long. But the manuscript is actually 110,000 words long! An editor would probably not be amused by the discrepancy.

50,000 is fine. A tight 50,000-word novel that’s a compelling read with a strong premise will absolutely sell. I sold a 48,000ish-word YA last year. Mine was maybe more like an upper MG, but still: if the ms. is strong enough, 50k is not a problem. Word count is only disqualifying when it starts alarms flashing: 30,000 words (though they certainly exist) or 300,000 (though they, too, sadly, exist).

If you want something to worry about, worry about this: if you’re focusing on readers 15-18, and writing superhero stuff, you’re probably trying to reach -boys- from 15-18, and that’s considered something between laughable and impossible.

I suspect that if we include enough sex and violence, then of course 16 year old boys will read the books. But publishing (in my limited experience) is nervous about really gritty stuff for teenage boys in a way that they’re not for teenage girls. (Read ‘Tender Morsels’ some time …) I think we’re afraid of boys. In Kick Ass, if I understand it, you’ve got a homicidal 11-year-old-girl who says ‘cunt’ and kills dozens and doesn’t learn a redemptive lesson. If she were a boy, people would’ve freaked and written letters to the editor about Columbine.

CG, the two sources in the post above recommend 50-80K and 55-70K for mainstream YA. If the manuscript is good enough, I think an editor or agent would give you some latitude on length. So I think you’re mostly okay on length (but if you can figure out a way to extend the plot without padding, it probably wouldn’t hurt).

I am writing a dystopian story where the characters (one of which has a mental disability) wish for freedom. I don’t typically write action/adventure based stories so I’m struggling to actively describe my character, Alex, escaping from the mental institute. Help?!

“Should I be inherently concerned [it’s 130k words], or is this considered workable so long as the story is strong and well-executed?”

From article above: “Both Chuck and Colleen emphasize that there are exceptions, like novelists publishing 200,000 word behemoths. But such exceptions are extremely rare. If you try going well above or below the usual range, your writing needs to be extraordinary. I would not recommend doing so unless you are absolutely sure that your story cannot work at a more conventional range [probably ~100 to maybe 110k in this case].

For my first draft, I’d try to aim 10-20% longer than my submission target to give me space to cut/sharpen underperforming elements. At the least invasive level, you can sometimes save a LOT of space by ending dialogues and/or action scenes earlier* and/or by shaving off narration/exposition and scenebuilding. More invasively, possibly removing scenes that got abandoned by the plot and/or are redundant with other scenes, shaving down backstory, merging and/or deleting characters, etc.

Thank you! It feels pretty cool, I won’t lie, even in context of revisions/cuts/edits.

During this revision, I’ve been looking for opportunities to be more concise–trimming unnecessary words and sentences, tightening or removing lines of dialogue, etc. Parts of scenes have gone, but I also know that there are parts especially toward the end that require more development, i.e. more word count. I’m about 3/4 through this first pass and I’ve cut an approximate 400 words. I know at least half of that will be put back in at the end.

With a hyper-efficient edit, I still wager this novel would come in around the ~128K mark and to be very honest, not just because I wrote it, I honestly couldn’t say where any actual content/characters could be cut without damaging the plot. I’m hoping some of the beta feedback I receive can assist me in this regard. It’s my goal to remain as objective as possible while maintaining the integrity of the story.

I’m also seeking to balance length by continuing to develop narrative style, authorial voice, polish, etc. I’d like to remain open to refinement here because the goal of course is getting published. I think I just have a big book… my objective is to make it read exceptionally.

But yeah, that the current state of the sphere. Working on it, working on it…

“if you’re interested in taking a glance at it, I would be honored.” Definitely!

“I think I just have a big book… my objective is to make it read exceptionally.” Agreed. In this case (moderately over typical length ranges), I think it should probably be possible to cut 10-20% without radically changing the plot, tone, or feel of the work. If you were cutting down from (say) 200k to 100k, that would probably require some pretty terrifying edits.

“if you’re interested in taking a glance at it, I would be honored.” Definitely!

Right on! That means a lot, man, thank you! I’d like to complete this current pass, first–rooting out passive verbs, overused language, as well as searching for additional scenes/content that can be cut–but after that, as soon as this weekend, I can email you a PDF of the updated manuscript. Does that work out?

“In this case (moderately over typical length ranges), I think it should probably be possible to cut 10-20% without radically changing the plot, tone, or feel of the work. If you were cutting down from (say) 200k to 100k, that would probably require some pretty terrifying edits.

I’m definitely encouraged after my post about removing that 800-word scene. Immediately following the update, I actually did the same to another ~650 word scene. I’m sure there will be other opportunities as I continue on. Even given that there is more to develop toward the end (additional word count), I feel much more confident about the prospect of a “hyper-efficient” edit. Here’s hoping!

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